Clear that cam rip of "Unreleased Indiana Jones 5" out of your queue, and make room for some legal downloads.

BitTorrent has announced plans to release 16 award-winning documentary films, marking the first time the file-sharing service has directly offered access to feature-length movies.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, The BitTorrent Bundle allows independent filmmakers who want to buck the traditional distribution pathways to wide-release their films the opportunity to distribute to a wide audience. The torrent bundles also allow for more of the profit to go directly to the filmmakers, instead of to traditional theater-minded distributors.

The first salvo included four bundles: Sonic Journeys, Arcade Stories, Digital Revolt, and American Roots. Each bundle has four films, which can be downloaded throgh the service, or streamed as soon as the $15 purchase goes through. The Digital Revolt bundle is the first to be available, and it includes the films The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, The Startup Kids, TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyboard, and We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists.

There's no word on when the other three bundles will go live, but the deal should pave the way for even more feature-length films to get legitimate P2P distribution as the year goes on.

This is pretty brilliant. Not only does it enable lesser known directors to make some money off their work, it also sends a message to the media companies. If a service used almost exclusively for illegal sharing of media can become a platform for cheap digital distribution, what's their excuse for not doing the same thing themselves?

I see that this is only documentaries I've never heard of, just like when GOG started "selling movies", so I'm assuming these are DRM-free downloads even though the article doesn't specify. I sure hope the fact that there's basically no market for these doesn't come back to bite them by "confirming" for the major studios that nobody wants to buy DRM-free media.

Alexander Kirby:Well if Cruchyroll could do it I don't see why other sites famous for piracy can't become a reputable cornerstone of a particular market.

This is a bit different than what Crunchyroll does though. Honestly, I'd love for something something similar to this to happen for anime. The whole simucast thing is alright, but a lot of times the typesetting suffers because they have to work so quickly to get it out. I'd gladly pay on a series-by-series basis(assuming reasonable prices) for quality 1080p encodes with good translations and typesetting that I can download to my HDD. Streaming has it's uses, but I can't readily use Crunchyroll to show my friends anime at their place because the internet on base is beyond shit. It would be much better if I could just take my OpenElec box with me and plug a HDD into it.

I don't think the Hollywood Farquads will react to this in a good way. If they did decide to distribute this way, they will either each require their own torrent client, loaded with DRM, or will partner with companies like Amazon or Apple to make similar DRM infested P2P platforms (possibly with exclusive films, so you will need more than one client). Also, I'd bet the prices will not go down anywhere near what they are saving in lower bandwidth costs. The trickle effect ends in their own personal accounts, according to them.

Steve the Pocket:I see that this is only documentaries I've never heard of, just like when GOG started "selling movies", so I'm assuming these are DRM-free downloads even though the article doesn't specify. I sure hope the fact that there's basically no market for these doesn't come back to bite them by "confirming" for the major studios that nobody wants to buy DRM-free media.

I hope so, too. The MAFIAA (Music And Film Industry Association of America) treats this newfangled internet and DRM worse than Ubisoft is currently. They also jump to conclusions just as fast and blame piracy for their woes just as often.

Scars Unseen:This is a bit different than what Crunchyroll does though. Honestly, I'd love for something something similar to this to happen for anime. The whole simucast thing is alright, but a lot of times the typesetting suffers because they have to work so quickly to get it out. I'd gladly pay on a series-by-series basis(assuming reasonable prices) for quality 1080p encodes with good translations and typesetting that I can download to my HDD. Streaming has it's uses, but I can't readily use Crunchyroll to show my friends anime at their place because the internet on base is beyond shit. It would be much better if I could just take my OpenElec box with me and plug a HDD into it.

Yeah, obviously CR and BT are catering to different markets, and always were, but I think it's nice to see them starting to offer legit versions of their particular service to those who care about giving something back to the original creators.

The black market becomes the market, the old market dies, where and what will the new black market be and what will it look like when the world rolls back over onto it's arse again.

The thing about torrent engines though is even if they become a ligitimate market, they will still also be the black market.

So they will be both.

The fact is unless they are going to start monitoring what indiviudal torrents people download (and if they do that watch every user jump ship immediatly) people can still torrent anything just as they do now. Even if the legitamte service is there too.

Oh, cool, i may be able to buy good quality video online finally, instead of having to buy bluerays and ripping them so i wouldnt need to use the disc. the only other service that offers somewhat comaprable quality is the Sony 4k download one, and thats extremely limited.

Depends on how you define file-sharing service. Is online retailers sharing files? if so, you can buy movies from GoG and Steam already (very few in selection). If by file-sharing you mean service that allows users to share files then no, BitTorrent is NOT one. PirateBay is one. MegaUpload is one. BitTorrent is a software developer that makes software that those services use (among others).

Also depends on what you mean directly offered access. because there are multiple indie movie people who have released their movies legally on torrents themselves. full length.

The Digital Revolt bundle is the first to be available, and it includes the films The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz, The Startup Kids, TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away from Keyboard, and We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists.

Ah, now i understand why they pulled the free distribution of those, they wanted to sell them after all. With exception of The Startup Kids, the other 3 used to be publicly available for free. Just like that Last of Us documentary. but someone wanted money i guess.

Pinkamena:This is pretty brilliant. Not only does it enable lesser known directors to make some money off their work, it also sends a message to the media companies. If a service used almost exclusively for illegal sharing of media can become a platform for cheap digital distribution, what's their excuse for not doing the same thing themselves?

BitTorrent is not a distribution service. It is one of hundreds of Torrent clients that can interpret protocols used by distribution services. While they were the first to use Torrent protocol widely, the client is so bad and hated (not apart from the fact that they worked with antipiracy agencies and spied on people) and most reputable torrent distributors do not even service BitTorrent client.

It is now nothing more than a name for torrent people from the viewpoint of people who dont know what torrents are.